Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ) shows off the French national champions jersey in style

(AFP)

Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ) took victory on stage one of Paris-Nice after edging out Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-Merida) and a rapidly-closing Elia Viviani (Cannondale) in a breathless sprint finish in Nemours.

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It was Bouhanni’s second victory of the season and the resultant ten-second time bonus was enough to see him leapfrog ahead of Damien Gaudin (Europcar) and into the yellow jersey of race leader.

A boxer in his youth, Bouhanni’s still follows a fighter’s regimen as part of his winter training, and the instincts born of his background in the sweet science served him well in Nemours, where he went toe to toe with a heavyweight slugger in Petacchi.

First, Bouhanni showed nimbleness of mind and foot to latch onto Sylvain Chavanel’s rear wheel when the Omega Pharma-QuickStep man jumped with 300 metres to go, and then he had the punch to outstrip Petacchi when the two came shoulder to shoulder in the middle of the road inside the final 200 metres.

“It was great to get the win today and to take the yellow jersey as well,” Bouhanni said afterwards. “The team was super today.”

While Bouhanni came away pleased with his afternoon’s work, a number of other sprinters were left nursing myriad regrets about how they were left sprawling on the canvass. Viviani showed considerable invention to untangle himself after getting boxed in as the sprint began, but the prodigious ground he made up on Bouhanni and Petacchi en route to his third-place finish will also be source of frustration.

Mark Renshaw (Blanco) showed his form by winning the Clasica Almeria last week, and though he found himself well-positioned as the bell sounded for the sprint here, he could only manage 6th. The Australian was perhaps a victim of his own etiquette: as Petacchi and Bouhanni drifted towards one another in the finale, Renshaw hesitated rather than claim the gap between them as his own, and the door shut on his prospects of victory.

The greatest regrets will be those of pre-stage favourite Marcel Kittel (Argos-Shimano), however, who didn’t even get the chance to sprint. After a relatively sedate day of racing – thanks largely to the still conditions – a sharp rise in pace with 20 kilometres to go forced a split in the peloton, and saw a sizeable group that included Kittel and Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) removed from contention. The German attempted to chase back on, but was forced to relent when the gap stretched out beyond 40 seconds.

Split

The sunny, still conditions that greeted the peloton in Saint-German-en-Laye on Monday morning ensured that there would be no repeat of the windswept drama of last year’s opening road stage, when the race for overall victory was reduced to just a handful of riders.

Once the flag dropped, a three-man break featuring Romain Sicard (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Bertjan Lindeman (Vacansoleil-DCM) and Yannick Talabardon (Sojasun) was given its bon de sortie for the day, with the Europcar squad of yellow jersey Damien Gaudin content to maintain a steady pace on the front of the peloton.

The leading trio’s chugged away to a maximum lead of seven minutes underneath the watery spring sunshine, while behind, the combination of narrow roads and a bunched peloton saw a spate of crashes inside the final 50 kilometres: Rui Costa (Movistar) was forced to abandon with a wrist injury, while Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) and Kevin Seeldraeyers (Astana) were also among the fallers, and Viviani was caught up in another crash.

As the finish drew closer, BMC – and world champion Philippe Gilbert in particular – came to the front of the peloton to add impetus to Europcar’s pursuit of the break, who were eventually caught with 22 kilometres to go. Gilbert’s cameo was an encouraging sign for the Belgian with the classics on the horizon, but it was a less promising afternoon for his fellow countryman Tom Boonen, who was uncharacteristically caught out when the peloton split shortly after the break was swept up.

Boonen’s Omega Pharma-QuickStep teammate Sylvain Chavanel was in the leading group, however, and the Frenchman appeared to be turning the pedals with disarming facility in the closing kilometres. Indeed, such was Chavanel’s confidence that he even attempted to surprise the sprinters in the finishing straight.

While that bid fell short, Chavanel remains just one second off the yellow jersey, albeit now in third place following Bouhanni’s fine win.